Te wiki o te reo Mäori

Tënä koutou e hoa mä, as last week was Te wiki o te reo Mäori I thought I’d add a quick pronunciation guide to the blog. It should be fairly accurate as I’ve borrowed most of it from the NZEI building the Reo series.
Each word in broken into syllables, each syllable ends after the vowel
So Köhungahunga
Is ko-hu-nga-hu-nga.
Ko-as in core
Hu as in hoo
Nga as in singah
Hu as in hoo
Nga as in singah

Try and catch repeating syllable combinations as this can help your pronunciation, in this case, hunga-hunga.

The macron above a vowel eg ö indicates it’s a long vowel with an extended sound.

Here’s some common sounds, unless a part is underlined it’s said as if for the whole word.

Ra as in rah
Re as in rare
Ru as in roo
Ri as in Regard
Ro as in raw

Ta as in tar
Ti as in tea
Te as in tear
To as in tore
Tu as in too

Ka as in car
Ko as in core
Ku as in koo
Ki as in key
Ke as in care

Me as in men
Ma as in mah
Mo as in maw
Mi as in me
Mu as in moo

Ha as in hah
He as in hear
Hu as in hoo
Hi as in he
Ho as in haw


Ö as in or
E as in air
A as in ah
I as in ee
U as in oo


Nga as in singah
Wha as in far
Hea as in hair
Täu as in toe
Kau as in co
Nei as in neigh

And some phrases

E hia ö matimati? –How many fingers/toes/digits (matimati) do you have?
Tekau ö matimati – You’ve got ten fingers
He tekau nga matimati ahau –I have 10 fingers (my own phrasing)
Me kaute täua ke te tekau – Let’s count to ten

Tahi
Rua
Toru
Whä
Rema
Ono
Whitu
Waru
Iwa
Tekau

You might like to visit http://www.korero.maori.nz/
Or http://www.learningmedia.co.nz/ngata/ an online dictionary and phrase guide.

Have fun and enjoy te reo Mäori